Revisiting the deranged world of No More Heroes conjures mixed recollections. It’s kind of like reconnecting with an ex that you harbor equal parts fond and sordid memories of, and realizing your relationship is still phenomenally real– especially now that you’re barely expecting it. She changed her look, caught you off-guard with a new wardrobe, and is too busy cutting right to the chase to worry about your last indelibly rocky affair. Yes, the playful mistress has returned to your blinking white wand, and she knows exactly how to press your buttons. And with that, the Wii finally has its definitive bloodthirsty action game — and No More Heroes 2′s trigger-happy perversion knows no bounds.

NMH2 carries with it a constant swagger, a decidedly lo-fi marriage between grime and prodigy. It’s one of the best-paced games I’ve ever experienced, stringing together hilariously over-the-top “oh crap!” moments from beginning to end. Ask the random editors that amassed around my desk as I played, all of whom yelled, “what the f***?” about as often as my in-game character did in his deluge of ad-libs. If Metroid Prime can be imprudently named “the ‘Citizen Kane’ of gaming,” this is gaming’s “Wu-Tang Forever” — an intensely focused return to gritty braggadocio form, backed by high production values and a gang of inimitable emcees. The crux of NMH2 is its spectacularly over-the-top bosses and the variety of character they bring to the ensuing fights. As you climb the ranks to become the top assassin in the city of Santa Destroy, you’ll battle a Scottish b-boy with a rocket-launching boom box and a hallucination of a child with Optimus Prime arms, just to name a couple.

Gone are the banal side-missions that clogged the first game, replaced instead with interchangeably awesome micro-tributes to gaming’s 8-bit glory days, in the form of NES-style “jobs” that feel anything but laborious. We get an Outrun-inspired motorcycle pizza delivery race, a galactic trash-collector, a vermin-vacuuming game, and more — all of which come complete with retro music, beeping-and-booping sound effects, and the clicks and wheezes of wacky NMH2 protagonist Travis Touchdown blowing into virtual cartridge slots to boot them up. A few of these modern classics may even inspire players to boot up NMH2 simply to revisit them.

Also included is a bullet-hell shoot ‘em up playable from your own motel room — a place you’ll revisit often to swap attire, ensure your pet cat is on the right path to proper weight loss, learn new combat maneuvers from your wrestling magazine collection (don’t ask), and save your game (by… visiting the bathroom). If that sounds a little too weird, don’t worry: These are all optional ways to kill time between violently decapitating victims, battling giant robots, and attempting to survive whatever else this sanguine machine decides to throw at you next. How deeply you want to lose yourself amidst NMH2′s bizarrely addictive side-content is completely up to you… but if you’re anything like me, say goodbye to your friends and family for a while.

I have mixed feelings about the franchise’s non-Wii-exclusive future. On one hand, the series’ abundantly original art style deserves to be experienced in the sort of high-definition glory that Nintendo just can’t offer. But if NMH2′s Wii Classic Controller support is any indication, simple button presses aren’t nearly as satisfying as slashing the Wii Remote through the air as you decapitate your foes. At the very least, a dedicated camera stick could have made up the difference; no matter what control scheme you prefer, occasional camera hiccups pop up when your intense fights get backed into a corner or alley. Despite the incidental gaffes, developer Grasshopper Manufacture has written a brilliantly twisted love letter to the videogame medium, scrawled in blood and pixels.